The Saiyans' schedules had diverged enough so that their sleeping cycles did not match. Especially as Trunks kept her usual schedule, with two to three short naps a day, while Vegeta collapsed for longer hours, but his resting periods were separated by a much longer stretch of activity. At least not every ten days anymore, and Trunks was happy he actually came to rest on his own, but that also meant either hostile vitriol or indignant contempt whenever they crossed paths. It took all of her willpower to ignore the actual words spoken by Vegeta, and rather listen to what he was trying to communicate, as she'd done in the Gravity Room, but the constant effort was slowly but surely taking its toll on her patience.
She who was used to somewhat pleasant or polite conversation around meals was forced behind mental walls and on constant alert. Trunks knew she had prepared herself for a longer journey without her mother, she'd miss her, but she gathered she would be busy enough to be able to put that on the proverbial backburner, but a full year with only Vegeta as a hostile socialization partner was more than a challenge for her sanity. One she knew she'd fail at, if she didn't address it at some point during their stay. She'd have to sort some other issues first, though.
It took a month for Trunks and Vegeta to find a way to fight each other, finally, even if Trunks insisted on staying in base. Which led her to lose every spar, as while she often saw herself as being faster than Vegeta, she just lacked the combat sense to make use of it in a concrete and applicable way. Still, every day she made some progress, lasted a little longer, could actually counter some of Vegeta's hits, and guarded herself better against his hits. And for better or for worse, Vegeta had been catching up to her speed, little by little. Vegeta wasn't teaching her anything, but at least there was a sense of relative safety fighting the older Saiyan, at least more so than her fights with the Cyborgs felt like. Trunks started to like fighting, in a disturbing way, it was the best bonding she could hope for with any version of her father. Vegeta's language was violence, and she would force herself to use his language, as he clearly wasn't about to use hers.
Vegeta humored the decision to do 'light work' for a while, but he was getting frustrated with this kid who didn't want to use super Saiyan, despite having the ability to do so.
About two months into their stay, after a full month of daily fights in base, Vegeta's eyes narrowed dangerously when his last kick sent Trunks down, bloody and bruised. Similar hits usually had the teenager flip and land on her feet, but she just landed with a thud and slowly rolled over. Instead of standing, she stayed a knee down. They'd been at it for a few hours already, and Vegeta knew the kid would soon call it a loss and leave. And he wasn't having it that day.
"This again, brat?" He walked over and stood a couple of meters away, arms crossed.
She stood up, spat blood, rubbed her busted lip, and properly guarded again. Her stare was blank, and she finally answered his question.. with another. "This what, Vegeta-san?"
"How long do you plan on doing such worthless training?"
Trunks couldn't find an answer as fast as she'd want. She heard the words, but not the message, and at the risk of infuriating the other, she let her guard down and let her body language and her eyes question him. In retrospect, the vitriol could have been far worse.
"You came here to surpass super Saiyan, right?" He spat, and Trunks nodded silently. "I don't care what's going on, but it's annoying and I've wasted enough time with you."
As if the venom in his words summoned the rage of the golden aura, Vegeta transformed. Trunks couldn't make up her mind about whether she was confused or worried. She didn't have time to process the sudden change, anyway.
"From now on, I'm attacking you like this, and you'd better transform if you don't want to die." He at least gave a verbal heads-up, before actually following up with a ki blast.
Trunks' survival instincts kicked in and she ducked, rising back up with the same golden aura, ready to defend herself against the follow up. She used her hand to block the incoming fist, and pushed aside to try and open Vegeta's guard, but he used the momentum to turn around and kick towards the side of her head. The teen managed to put her forearm on the way, then swiftly block the leg under her arm, her other hand charging a point blank ki blast to his chest.
What she didn't expect was Vegeta letting himself fall, flip over with both hands on the ground, and use that momentum (and the relative strong hold Trunks had on his leg) to catapult her away. She landed better than previously, but if her panting was any indicator, she was at her limit. 'And I thought I was flexible,' she mused an instant, realizing how acrobatic this version of her father had just been.
Pulling at super Saiyan didn't replenish her energy, it made it even worse, but the primal need to fight took over. She barely had time to ready herself when she had to jump off and avoid the incoming barrage of ki blasts. Some of them she matched with her own ki, her muscle memory doing the heavy lifting as the Cyborgs more often than not used ki blasts, and countering them with her own was a way to protect earthlings and herself. Vegeta used the explosions as a distraction to phase in front of her to punch her deep in the gut. She managed to put both hands in the way to catch the fist, her feet dragging back under the force the older had put into the attack. She didn't have time to be happy about her unexpected block, the other's elbow hit her hard between the shoulder blades, forcing the transformation off of her at the same time she was forced down on the ground. She bit her tongue to force herself to not let any sound of pain leave her. Expressing pain was the best way to get more of it, with the Cyborgs, so she'd grown used to pushing through in silence.
"This is a waste of time. You can't win if you fight with shackles!" Vegeta's angered voice reached her ears.
She expected him to fight her more, as she slowly built the strength to push herself on her hands and knees, a first step to stand up, but he instead flew away, deeper into the void. He called it off this time, but she knew better than to chase.
She guessed she had enough time before Vegeta came back to their shared space for a proper shower and a relaxing bath. She was long overdue for a change of clothes and proper hygiene. She prepared herself another dark outfit, they were easier to clean than lighter colors, and another fabric binder (Kami was she glad she didn't wear the reinforced ones with Vegeta, else she'd spend far too much time repairing them), then got out of her dirty clothes and moved around the bathing quarters wrapped in a comfortable bathrobe she eventually removed and placed near the bathtub for later.
After a thorough cleaning and rinsing at the showers, Trunks sank into the large bathtub for the first time since her entry in this strange dimension. 'I don't think I've ever seen one this large, it's almost as big as a pool.' The water was scented, opaque and steaming. Good, Trunks, like her mother, liked her water almost boiling. It's a girl thing, she'd been told. She could deal with the extreme temperatures of the strange void. Her ki managed to ward off the worst of the coldest temperatures, but heat was something she actually liked, her mother had told her the Saiyan homeworld was warmer than Earth, or so had Vegeta said at some point during their short lived time together. 'Perhaps boiling baths was a Saiyan thing and not a girl thing?'.
She relaxed in the bath and started to wonder about how to proceed with training. The constant stress should have made her want to smoke, but despite having her tobacco with her, she never reached for it. The Room of Spirit and Time didn't smell like broken industries, polluted nature, death or blood, and she'd managed to keep physically and mentally busy enough to not think too hard about certain things. Until now.
She knew she needed to stay grounded in reality, but her mind- her spirit needed training too, and she needed to sort herself out. And what better place to think things through than a nice, relaxing, hot bath? 'How to proceed from here? Vegeta-san resents me for not using super Saiyan, but I refuse to yield to it. He rides it… Because he's a full-blooded Saiyan. He can't actually teach me.' She slid fully under the water to wet her hair and face, then sat back up and gently massaged her own shoulders and arms under the water. Usually it would be her mother helping her body and mind relax properly, but she wasn't there, and she missed her dearly at that precise moment. She worked her way to her chest, pulling a little at the pectoralis. She knew she spent far too long wearing the binders, so she spent more time to try and mitigate the damage.
"This is frustrating." She grumbled to herself. 'And Vegeta-san doesn't want to fight in base anymore.'
She kept thinking about how to either have better control of super Saiyan, or how to embrace it, while her hands worked through her sore muscles little by little. When she got to her legs, she touched a piece of skin, then moved her hand up just to be able to check her watch, which she rarely removed. Once in the Chamber, it had disconnected from the satellite it used to update itself, both for date and time, but also topography and GPS. It still counted hours and days just fine, carrying through by itself. It would probably reset once out, but in the meantime, the watch said they were well into July now. '58 days,' she noted, and removed a planned alarm, then went back to remove a patch she'd put on her inner thigh, putting the piece of flesh-colored adhesive fabric on the border of the tub behind her, and carried on.
'I wonder what he meant by shackles,' she blew bubbles under the water, massaging her own toes. 'Even if Gohan-san would not want me to do any of this, only I remain. A solution exists, else older-me would have not succeeded. And I know Cell exists in my world, so I can destroy it before it hatches, once I come back.' She sank underwater briefly to push back her hair out of her face, wrapped her arms around her legs and let her chin rest on her knees which barely touched the surface of the water. 'If I come back. I.. need to go to that other universe first, if only to give them a proper burial.'
Something moved in her field of vision, and the mental image of an elephant between his legs imprinted her mind. Vegeta, butt naked strolling in the bathing quarters, passed right next to the bathtub, and Trunks gasped in panic. She had guessed she had enough time. She guessed wrong, or she spent far too long in the bath. 'Oh no no no..'
And Vegeta jumped in the bathtub, without even washing himself first. Trunks could only stare in horror as around him, the opaque water changed colors, with the blood Vegeta had on his body. Her blood, but also his. Her arms tensed around her legs, begging for death.
"Vegeta-san, you're supposed to clean yourself before using the bath," she managed to say without letting her voice show too much panic, or so she hoped. But the Saiyan didn't care and relaxed, staring right through the teenager with black, expressionless eyes.
"I am also already using the bath," her voice trembled despite trying to express her protest.
"Tsk, you've got nothing I haven't seen before, brat. Besides, it's big enough."
"Just because Saiyans like to show their naked bodies doesn't mean I want to see any of that, have a little modesty." Now she was more assertive, the memory of Goku doing the same and actually trying to get her to share the bath with him and Gohan still fresh in her mind. 'My poor virgin eyes,' she lamented.
"You've seen other Saiyans naked?" He had to ask with a raised eyebrow.
"Son-san has even less shame than you. What is it with everyone wanting to share a bath with me, a stranger?" She groaned in disgust.
"Did you?" Somehow, Vegeta's tone was darker, and he lost his smile even for a brief instant. Trunks missed the tone shift, too mortified about her own situation, and too angry at the sudden intrusion of her privacy.
"Hell no. Son-san asked instead of forcing me," She stated coolly, implying Vegeta had forced her hand. "Saiyans are disgusting." Men are disgusting, actually.
"You are a Saiyan too." Vegeta smirked and ran a wet hand over his face to clean up. That's when Trunks knew the older one was absolutely doing this on purpose.
"I'm a half-breed, not a true Saiyan," she corrected through gritted teeth, still red. "Turn around, I'm leaving."
Vegeta met her eye again, finding the situation far too amusing to not let linger a little more, taunting, but he actually did as asked after closing his eyes. Trunks looked where Vegeta would be looking, making sure there was no mirror, and in a swift movement, jumped out of the bathtub and put back on the bathrobe she'd left near, properly tying it. She also grabbed the patch she'd removed and put it in the bathrobe's pocket; she'd toss it later. The robe was large enough she would properly hide her body in it.
"Brat," Vegeta called when she walked around the tub to leave.
"What?" She answered, cold and cutthroat, but stopping and looking over her shoulder.
"You don't like fighting," he stated staring back at the teenager, both elbows on the edge of the tub, and with a lazy hand gesture, indicated the other should approach.
Trunks felt compelled to obey. She grabbed a stool on the way, to sit closer, feeling more at ease without the robe fully hugging her body. "Not really, no," she confirmed, trying to look back at this version of her father, trying to learn something from what he was trying to tell her.
"Then why are you here?" Vegeta growled, but Trunks saw no threat, the other's body language was relaxed, trusting even.
Trunks frowned, she listened closely, and thought everything over, before looking back at Vegeta. What did he mean? The words were harsh, vitriolic, but not the tone. She put a hand in her hair and squeezed some water out of it. She also questioned what he'd told her after abandoning their fight that very same day.
"I feel responsible for how things turned out in this world," she looked down, unable to match the gaze anymore. Might as well try and trust the man, and if she'd end up hurt because of it, so be it. "I want to make up for it, somehow. My life isn't that important, Mother and I cheated fate far too often already, so it's fine if I die." The reality of her other self's death had been eating at her.
Vegeta splashed her, straight up and without a warning, but she didn't move. "If you keep thinking of such useless things, you're going to be a hindrance. You're my heir, have some pride!"
She looked up with a certain anger and hurt, which she tried to contain, but failed miserably at. "No, I am not. Your heir is the baby, your son. I am getting sick and tired of having to explain to everyone that you are not my father, it's already hard on my mind to accept that truth. The Vegeta that was my father was killed because of his pride and his love for fighting. Pride is worthless to the dead, and to those they leave behind!"
Vegeta's stare didn't change, but his smirk got more confident. He noted with delight the sudden disappearance of the teenager's pupils, knowing if he pushed more, super Saiyan might come through. He'd studied the kid's pattern enough to know that the first step, before even the blue turned to teal, was the pupils drowning in the blue.
"Tear down your own walls, they're a prison to your power," Vegeta challenged and stood in the bath. Trunks stood as well, just about ready to take him up on the challenge, but the sudden reality of Vegeta's naked self and her own vulnerable self in a damp bathrobe, hit her and she quickly turned red and walked away.
"I'll carve my own path as a half-breed, Vegeta-san," she grumbled with a little haste, grabbing her change of clothes.. and his dirty garments.
She returned a few minutes later, dry and dressed, with a brand new patch on her thigh. She had in her hand her black tank top, her gray pants and a belt, coincidentally the outfit she wore when she killed Freeza and King Cold.
"Your clothes are disgusting, so I'll wash them. I am leaving you a change of clothes," she said through the bath quarter entrance, while Vegeta had finally decided to properly soap up in the washing area.
After taking care of the laundry, Trunks disappeared further into the void after grabbing a snack, hoping to find a solution and a place to think things through without having male genitalia dangling in front of her all of the sudden.
By early morning, Eighteen woke up in Seventeen's arms, the sounds of dawn birds forcing her out of her slumber. She shifted a little trying to push her brother away, but Seventeen held on tighter and grumbled something about 'five more minutes, and please turn off that noise'.
"Idiot brother," she chuckled and held him back. She wouldn't admit she had missed how they slept together as kids. Her memories prior to her abduction were sparse at best, but some images, some nostalgic feelings of being in a bed like this gave her a sense of familiar safety. Even if she couldn't remember exactly what had happened.
"You remember more of our life as plain humans, don't you.." But Seventeen wasn't awake. Eventually Eighteen had enough, and pinched his cheek with a playful smile. "Rise, sunshine," she teased him and they got out of bed to continue their journey.
Eighteen had found a plain white tee, a cute black vest and some jeans, which were better than her cowboy-like outfit, in Chichi's wardrobe, and that was good enough for now. Better than all of these qipao and gis the Ox Princess had collected over the years. The wedding dress was way too fluffy too. Seventeen did hold the dress against him and twirled, enjoying the fun of it all, but put back on his own clothes quickly enough to get going.
The two cyborgs left the house to have a look at Mount Paozu in the early morning, and noticed Sixteen sitting against a tree, feeding the birds. No wonder it was so noisy.
"Alright Sixteen sorry for the wait. Had fun with the animals?" Seventeen asked his adopted 'big bro' with a certain tenderness.
"Affirmative. Nature is peaceful."
"But not quiet, noisy little bastards," Eighteen gently teased, but approached to see. "Cute lil fluffy things. Seems like you've got existence figured out once we kill Son Goku, eh Sixteen?"
"I will find a new purpose, taking care of birds and protecting nature." Sixteen confirmed.
"Well let's get this thing over then, and I don't know, find a cute park or reserve for you to retire in. En route to Kame-House?" Seventeen cracked his fingers and stretched his arms up.
Sixteen stood slowly, put back on the tree the squirrels that decided to nest on his shoulder, and nodded, ready to go. The three left flying towards Kame-House, which would only take a few minutes.
When the trio landed by the tiny house on the island, everyone but Piccolo was asleep. The Namekian needed little sleep, so he watched the news and insulted the TV giving him news of another town that was wiped out by Cell, now with actual images of the monster. A firm knock on the door interrupted his thoughts.
"Heeeyyy I've got a package delivery for Son Goku-sama! Can he come out and sign his own death certificate?" Piccolo recognized Seventeen's playful and taunting voice, and he promptly kicked everyone else awake.
Piccolo rushed out, to meet the three others, while Chichi looked through the highest window, and kept herself from commenting on how Eighteen had stolen her clothes. She dreaded having to clean the mess they'd surely made in her house.. if her house still stood.
Hi ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
The fight and Trunks' unwilling to go SSJ was partly inspired by the Gracias Doujinshi 3